A Fast Take: limiting Command and Control in wargames - part 2

 

 

Staff work makes the Dream work.

 

This will make more sense if you read the first part first. You can find it here. If you haven’t read it yet, go do that. Then come back and read this as well. There will be one more part to come, but I'll add a link to that here as well when it's up.

In Part 1, I highlighted a post written by game designer Fernando Sola Ramos entitled Mando y control en los wargames (Command and Control in wargames), published on Josep Oliver’s Spanish language blog, El desafío de las Águilas. As I mentioned in Part 1, it’s worth taking the time to read Sr. Ramos’s article, either in the original, or (like me) via a translation app. In fact, it’s worth blocking out an hour or two to spend on las Águilas. I always come away from reading Sr. Oliver’s blog with a fresh thought or a different perspective.

Sr. Ramos identified six models of rules mechanisms that game designers have used to mimic limited intelligence in the field of battle, along with a game (in most cases) that exemplified each model. For the sake of clarity, here’s a duplicate of the list that appeared in Part 1:

- Initiative rolls for activation (leaders or formations) – Napoleon at Bay: The Campaign in France, 1814 (Avalon Hill, 1978)

 - chit-pull formation activation – A Victory Lost: Crisis in Ukraine 1942-1943 (Multi-Man Publishing, 2006)

 - through shared orders with a limited "budget" of orders – Panzer: The Game of Small Unit Actions and Combined Arms Operations on the Eastern Front 1943-44 (GMT Games, 2012)*

 - activation of armies using points in card-driven games (no single example given here, but I’m sure everyone has at least one game in mind from their own experience).

 - leadership-distance chain of command (Great Battles of the American Civil War series)

 - limiting attacks to command formations (i.e. disallowing or limiting ad hoc formations). Sr. Ramos didn’t mention a particular example here, but visually represented Mark Simonitch’s “ZoC-Bond” family of games.

In Part 1, I looked at the first two models in the list, adding a couple of examples of my own. I’m going to do the same thing here for the next two in the list and wrap it up with a third post in a week or so.

 

Shared orders with a limited order "budget"

When I think of games that use Action Points (or Operation Points), a handful of Worthington games come to mind. In games as diverse as Hold the Line: the American Civil War (Worthington Publishing, 2019), the Blue & Gray series (Worthington Publishing, 2016), and 1944: Battle of the Bulge (I could also mention Worthington’s Holdfast series, but I don’t want to get too carried away here). Each of these games share some points of commonality, which could describe Worthington’s house philosophy, are relatively low-bar entry games into the hobby, with 8-16-page rulebooks and good production values, but still provide challenging game experiences that offer a satisfying experience for fairly evenly matched players.

All the games mentioned are two-player IGO-UGO games, nothing too fancy, but leach limits the number of activations that can occur in a single turn. Added to this is the change of scoring extra activation(s) via the sanctioned lottery of a die roll.

The Blue and Gray series games, for example, use a Command Action Point (CAP) system to limit just what you can do in a turn. Each player has a fixed number of CAPs per turn. At the start of a turn, each player rolls two dice and if the result equal to or greater than their side’s Leader’s Command Rating, they get an extra CAP for that turn. CAPs can only be used in their given turn; they can’t be banked for use in subsequent turns. And you don’t get many of them; In Jackson and Sheridan: The Valley Campaigns (Worthington Publishing, 2016), each side gets just two CAPs per turn, plus the possibility of a third. CAPs regulate movement, and one CAP will allow one unit to move up to its total allowable range (other games in the series may offer more CAPs per round). The point-to-point movement and limited agency make for a challenging cat-and-mouse hunt through the Shenandoah.

1862 scenario set-up for a solo playthrough (in my opinion, the best way to learn
 the basics of a game). Photo courtesy of Michael Wild, BGG. 

The Blue and Gray games are contests of manoeuvre, often with just six or seven units to a side. 1944: Battle of the Bulge is a slight level-up in bookkeeping, still not difficult, but instead of CAPs, it uses more generic Resource Points (or RPs). Each side gets a varying number of RPs each turn, and in significantly higher quantities than Blue-and Gray’s CAPs. But these are general-purpose issue points.

Resource Points must be spent for individual unit movement (one RP per unit) combat (one RP if all are from the same army or corps, two RPs if the attacking units are from different formations, and those costs are per hex attacked), and one RP per step to refit infantry units, two points per step to refit armoured units. After a couple of rounds the move/fight/refit decisions start to get tougher for both sides. The optional weather rolls for each turn can reduce the German Resource Point quotas by two each time the clouds depart. Neither side can ever do everything they want to in a turn, and that tension makes for

 

Activation of armies using points in card-driven games

As mentioned above, Sr. Ramos didn’t offer an example of this model in use. The obvious example might be any traditional Card-Driven Games (CGDs) like For the People (GMT Games, 1998) or Washington’s War (GMT Games, 2010). The Ops value on the card can be used to activate individual leaders and their attendant forces. The ops pint values run from one to three, and ironically, the lower the activation number, the more readily you can activate a general. There are also Minor and Major Campaign cards that allow the holding player to activate two or three generals simultaneously. I’ve been playing some Washington’s War on Rally the Troops lately – never turn down the opportunity to lose a game to somebody much better than you as it’s a worthwhile learning opportunity – and it is a game that is definitely worth your time. It captures the pace of the American Revolutionary War really well. But there is another system that, for me, represents the apotheosis of card-driven mechanics.

Literally blocking the roads to Erfurt.

For my money, the most interesting use of this model in recent years has been that applied to the Conquerors series of games, starting with Napoléon 1806 (Shakos, 2017). In the Conquerors system, each turn a unit can be activated, but only once. It is then turned upside-down to indicate the unit has acted that turn. The units represent full corps, all infantry and their attendant batteries and cavalry, which are named for their commander. Movement is point-to-point, starting with the Initiative holder, players take turns activating a formation or formations and units starting at the same location may move together as a larger formation. But this is where it gets interesting. Each activation, the player declares which formation or formations will be ordered. Then a card is drawn; the cards in these games are multi-use, but in this capacity, the player checks the number in the top corner indicating that card's action point value, which will dictate how many movement-points that formation has to spend on that turn. The number will be between one and six.

If two or more formations are to attempting to move together, a point will be taken off the total available for each extra unit before any movement can be undertaken. It’s conceivable that a multi-corps formation may not be able to move at all, or only a town or two (modelling orders not received, unclear in intent, or simply ignored). Activating the formations individually comes with its own hazards. Say you want three corps to take the most direct route to Leipzig and order them separately. If the first formation draws a two-point card for its movement, and the consecutive units draw a four and a five respectively, unless they can find an alternative route, they too will only move two spaces, due to road congestion.

This simple mechanical model adds a frustratingly realistic level of battle friction to the game, enriching the experience (well, enriching my experience). Since we’re talking about the Conquerors series, it’s a good time to mention a fourth volume is on its way to crowdfunding (I’m not sure at this stage which platform, so I’ll keep you posted). Napoléon 1870 (Shakos, ~2027) will bring the Conquerors system forward sixty years to the Franco-Prussian War, and frankly, I couldn’t be happier. This is a conflict that gets some wargaming attention from time to time, but is still largely ignored by the hobby, but it’s an interesting chapter of history and a crucial step in the development of war doctrine leading up to the Great War.

– <<STOP THE PRESSES>> –

Napoléon 1870 is currently on Kickstarter! At time of publication there’s about two weeks left of the campaign, plenty of time to back it if you’re interested. You can find it here.

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And so ends part 2. I dug into the back-shelves a bit for this instalment, and it’s given me an appetite to play the Blue and Gray games again.

 I’ve got something else on the cooker at the moment that I’m trying to finish off, so part 3 may take a little longer to get posted, but it shouldn’t be too much later. I also have a Quarterly Report to put together – not much news, but a couple of interesting things to talk about.

Thanks for reading this far.  As a reward, here’s a photo of our cat. Dharma was a rescue with a broken tooth who hated other cats and most people, but we took a chance on her and now she’s definitely a pat of the family. The first weekend of October marks the second full year of our mutual adoption, so happy anniversary, Dharma!

 

A Fast Take: Limiting Command and Control in wargames - part 1

 

Note: in posting, the text for this piece became rather muddled, with the pics and paragraphs placed in a rather haphazard order. I think I've wrangled it back into shape, but please drop me a note if you notice this or any other post seemingly out of whack.

Josep Oliver, custodian of the exempilary wargaming blog, El desafío de las Águilas, has recently featured some guest posts by designer Fernando Sola Ramos entitled Mando y controlen los wargames (Command and Control in wargames). Full disclosure: I’m by no means a fluent Spanish reader, but online translation has come a long way from its early days; I wouldn’t rely on free online translation services if I was involved in trade negotiations, but the terms and rationales involved in a piece like this are familiar enough to grasp. Sr. Ramos’s article was brief but engaging and well-stated. Sr. Ramos identified six mechanical approaches that add an element of limitation to Command in Control (CiC), adding examples of use in a published game for five of them.*

I’ve been thinking about the problem of CiC in games for a while; about a year into posting A Fast Game, I wrote a short list of possible articles that would be interesting for both myself to write and visitors to read. Reflecting the limitations of Command in Control in wargames was near the top of that list, though I think I noted it in terms of “Fog of War”. I struggled to find an in-road to talking about this subject. In his article, Sr. Ramos approaches the question straight ahead – taking a half-dozen examples of how different game designers approached the limited intelligence question.**

Playing with perfect intelligence.

It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Here I would like to use Sr. Ramos’s post as a launching point to look at some variations on his themes. But I want to make it clear that I’m only following a trail that has already been clearly marked. I’m just looking at more of the landscape.

Sr.  Ramos begins his consideration with a succinct appraisal (reproduced here because he said it better than I could):

Of the combat functions applicable to military operations, three are quite well executed in wargames: manoeuvre, fires, and logistical support. However, intelligence gathering (…) and command and control are often relegated to the background or completely forgotten.

Sr. Ramos broadly defines four essential methods used by designers of wargames to mimic Command in Control issues followed by the game or series he uses as an example):

- initiative rolls for activation (leaders or formations) – Napoleon at Bay: The Campaign in France, 1814 (Avalon Hill, 1978)

The MMP edition of Tetsuya Nakamura's A Victory Lost.

- chit-pull formation activation – A Victory Lost: Crisis in Ukraine 1942-1943 (Multi-Man Publishing, 2006)

- through shared orders with a limited "budget" of orders – Panzer: The Game of Small Unit Actions and Combined Arms Operations on the Eastern Front 1943-44 (GMT Games, 2012)

Fernando Sola Ramos's first published work, the France, 1940 expansion (GMT Games,
2019) for James Day's Panzer. Sr. Ramos is also responsible for
Panzer: North Africa (GMT Games,2024). 

- leadership-distance chain of command (Great Battles of the American Civil War series).

- activation of armies using points in card-driven games (no single example given here, but I’m sure everyone has at least one game in mind from their own experience)

Formation attacks in Normandy '44 (Photo courtesy of Takeo Ichikawa, BGG).

 - limiting attacks to command formations (i.e. disallowing or limiting ad hoc formations). Sr Ramos didn’t mention a particular example here, but visually implied Mark Simonitch’s “ZoC-Bond” family of games was a good example.

I can’t fault the rationale here – of course there will be cases that might seem to straddle more then one model here, but it’s a solid starting point for what I’ve been looking to discuss.

So, let’s look at these, one by one. I’ll follow the list as Sr. Ramos laid it out. I’ll break my examination down into more than one part, mostly because my clarity of thought is probably not as keen as my predecessor, and I’ll probably get myself stuck in the tall grass on some of these. For clarity, I’m going to refer throughout to the design strategies or choices listed above as “models”.

Initiative rolls for activation

As soon as I read the description of this model, my mind immediately went to the Men of Iron series (GMT), probably because I’ve been helping my brother-in-law to punch and sort his copy of the MoI Tri-Pack, (Second Printing (GMT Games, 2026), now that after some confusion, he’s finally received his Errata Pack). I think this might be the purest form of the model at hand.

The roll for the next activation receives a +1 Dice Roll Modifier (DRM) to the result. If that activation succeeds, the next has a +2 modifier, and so on (this is called Continuity). After the first failed roll, the initiative passes to your opponent, who takes their first Free Activation, then rolls for their second. The non-active player also has the option to wrest the initiative from the active player; this action is called Seizing Continuity and involves drawing a chit from a cup to establish success or failure. Some of the scenarios in the series may only have three Battles to a side; if a side manages to activate all their Battles successfully, the first Battle activated may be activated again. This isn’t likely to happen with the escalating negative DRM – in my experience you’re far more likely to fail your third Activation Check – but it’s possible.  

All up, it’s a simple, elegant mechanism to reflect the manifold variables at play in a battle at this scale – pauses in the action, second-guessing and missed opportunities – and adds the dense of the degree of collapse in command direction that marked the battles of the Middle Ages and into the Early Modern period.

Volume seven of the Men of Iron series, Ermine: Battles in the War of the
Breton Succession, 1341-1364 (GMT Games, ~2027), is currently available
for pre-order on GMT's P500 page.

Men of Iron doesn’t have a turn structure. Instead, the scenario dictates which side begins the hostilities, and they choose a formation to activate. Each (colour-coded) formation, or Battle (hereon a capitalised Battle will be referring to a formation, lower-case referring to the scenario situation), is headed by a Leader – usually a member of that country’s nobility, sometimes its monarch. The first activation is a “Free Activation”, but every activation for that side is subject to an activation role with a d10; to activate, the result must meet the Leader’s Activation Rating or lower to achieve activation.

Reign of confusion. Longbowmen are no match for mounted
Men at Arms - Agincourt scenario from the MoI Tri-Pack..

Chit-pull formation activation

One of my favourite implementations of this model is Christopher Moeller’s Brothers at War, 1862 (Compass Games, 2022). This is a brigade-level command tactical game, with regimental-sized units. As to be expected, a chit-pull activation system dictates which brigades are activated when, but there are some additional wrinkles to the model; also in the draw-cup are a number of Time markers (illustrated by a pocket-watch). As each chit is drawn, it’s placed on a chit track, which has some spaces marked with the same timepiece illustration. When two Time markers are drawn, the round ends, the cup is replenished, and the Turn marker is advanced.

A particularly short turn - just six activations.

A turn starts with one-or-two Time chits in the draw-mix, but each time the drawn chits reach a timepiece marked square on the chit track, another Time chit is added to the mix. This focuses the players’ attention on what they can do with each opportunity as it arrives. You need to keep your overall goals in mind as the game progresses, but you can’t count on your best units to be in exactly the right place at just the apt moment. The game requires the players to think on their feet and work within the parameters – or confines – of the available orders, without knowing what will be activated. I really like the challenge Brothers at War presents. And I’m pleased to share that, after a long wait, a second volume, Brothers at War, 1861 (Compass Games, ~2026), should be available later this year or early 2027.

Brothers at War is also a candidate for the leadership-distance chain of command model. 

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So, there’s the first part of my fast take on Fernando Sola Ramos’s CiC-limiting models. I’ll try to cover the remaining four models in Part 2, which I hope to post inside of a fortnight, but expect it when you see it.

I encourage you to share your thoughts in the comments. Let me know what  Command-in-Control models you prefer, or if you like to play your games in God-mode.

 

* I would encourage readers to go read this article themselves. If you open it in a Chrome browser it should offer to translate the text into your preferred language. You can find Sr. Ramos’s original article here. Sr. Oliver has since published two more pieces by Sr. Ramos, both well worth your time. In the most recent one he deals separately with the issue of Fog of War in games. I realise not conflating FoW with the limitations of CiC was probably what tripped me up in my own efforts to write about the subject.

** I call it a problem here. It’s obviously not a problem for some players – a few even resist any kind of limited intelligence in a wargame, and that’s cool – follow your bliss. But you’ll always be dipping into the shallow end of the pool, don’t try to tell me otherwise.

† For reasons known only to the arbiters of order at Boradgamegeek.com, the Black Swan series does not warrant its own series heading. But what would I know? Maybe it’s true that Black Swan games are really just “Blind Swords” games with the serial numbers filed off.